Mel Gibson And Antonio Banderas Confirmed For The Expendables 3

Will the real Expendables lease stand up? We have been dealing with a steady shuffling of the chairs on the deck of Sylvester Stallone’s third Expendables film over the past few days. The latest news, though, seems to confirm the inclusion of two major players (one of which we already kind of knew).

Vulture goes on record to say that Mel Gibson will play the villain in Stallone’s movie … a fact that the director/star Tweeted almost a month ago, but then had to backtrack. Well, now the former Mad Max star appears to be back on the roster, or “in talks,” alongside Antonio Banderas. The site doesn’t say who Banderas wil play – or which side he’ll fight for – but if Stallone can transition Gibson over from Machete Kills and team him with Banderas, another Robert Rodriguez personality, he might be on to something. Have you seen Gibson chatting up Machete with Extra? He’s pretty insane:

Where does Mel fit into the casting carousel that has been The Expendables 3 after the dust has settled from the past few days? Let’s take a look. Bruce Willis left the sequel before it went into production, reportedly asking $1 million in salary per day for four days of work. (Stallone, according to reports, offered the Die Hard star $3M for four days, but that wasn’t enough.) Sly then countered that news with the Tweet that Harrison Ford had been brought in to replace Willis … though I’m not sure if that has been officially confirmed by anyone outside of Stallone’s Twitter feed.

Of course, Gibson and Banderas join an ever-growing name of Wish List talents Stallone has attached to Expendables 3. Nicolas Cage, Jackie Chan, Wesley Snipes, Milla Jovovich, Twilight hunk Kellan Lutz … they all have been connected with the next Expendables movie at some point during this lengthy run up to production. And don’t forget all the old familiar faces Sly has to fit in from the previous films, from Jason Statham to Jet Li. How long is this new movie going to have to be in order to get everyone a little bit of screen time?

The third Expendables, will be in theaters on Aug. 15, 2014, so director Patrick Hughes is going to have to roll cameras shortly. That means the ensemble should be locked into place in the next few weeks, and then we’ll know for sure who’s fighting alongside Stallone … and who they are fighting against.